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Notices were issued by the Maharashtra Agriculture Department to seed companies in the state to pay Rs 210 crore in compensation to around 3 lakh cotton farmers affected by the Pink Bollworm attack.
At least 12 districts are reported to be affected by pink bollworm. Maharashtra is the first state to seek National Disaster Relief Fund assistance for crop loss due to pest infestation; till now it was only sought citing drought. The state has sought Rs 3,337 crore aid and relief for pest attack on 42.07 lakh hectares. After punchnamas and assessment of the loss of the cotton crop due to pink bollworm, the state government in December 2017, announced compensation for farmers at Rs 30,800 per hectare. Of this, Rs 6,800 a hectare was to be given from the National Disaster Relief Fund (NDRF), Rs 8,000 from the crop insurance cover and Rs 16,000 from the claims from the seed companies
The hearings in districts of Amravati divison and Beed were pending. Insurance companies, National Disaster Relief Fund and seed companies are all part of the compensation process under the Pink Bollworm attack.
Hearings are in progress at present and accordingly the State Agriculture Commissioner Sachendra Pratap Singh, Vijay Kumar Ingale, Director, Quality Control and other senior officials have been pursuing hearings on this issue.
Earlier, the department had directed seed companies to pay compensation worth Rs 93 crore to cotton farmers for the damage caused by the Pink Bollworm attack. Last season, some 34.35 lakh hectares had been affected by the Pink Bollworm attack affecting some 13.59 lakh farmers.
cultivation on 55,000 hectares. Hearings for Akola, Buldhana, Amravati, Washim, and Yavatmal districts in Amravati division and Beed district are yet to be completed.
According to officials, seed companies have been granted one month’s time to file their replies. After this, they can appeal to the Commissioner of Agriculture.
Though the compensation from two components has to come from the respective companies, the third component has to be paid by the state government.
The state government, in January, sent a memorandum to the Centre demanding Rs 2,425 crore and later revised the amount to Rs 3,373 crore in March demanding the assistance under NDRF.
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While India has a vibrant export industry in the textiles sector, the last few years have seen a marked increase in imports even as exports stayed range-bound. According to ICRA, the trend is due to protectionist measures by the US and China. For instance, India’s textile trade surplus has been consistently declining over the past few years as exports have remained range-bound with a slight negative bias, while imports have increased at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of -7 per cent between FY2014 and FY2018. Here’s a closer look:
The textile sector witnessed a session of immense gain in the stock market yesterday as investors rebalanced their portfolios in this sector after a good rally in the bank and power sectors.
Of the 50 textile stocks, 39 soared, seven declined and four remained unchanged yesterday.
According to LankaBangla Securities data, turnover in the textile sector soared 64.6 percent yesterday compared to the previous day. This sector’s turnover was Tk 135 crore, which is 18.7 percent of the day’s total turnover in the premier bourse.
“As the bank and fuel sectors have already seen a rise in the previous days, investors are now investing in other big sectors like textile,” said Mohammed Rahmat Pasha, CEO of UCB Capital Management.
He said there was no other reason for this sector to witness the increase. Since the total turnover in the market is almost the same, it means people are just rebalancing their portfolios. Of the major sectors, textile increased 1.92 percent, followed by ceramic 0.82 percent, fuel and power 0.42 percent and engineering 0.18 percent.
However, the benchmark index of the Dhaka bourse, DSEX, declined 2.61 points or 0.04 percent to finish the day at 5,600.64.
Turnover of Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) soared 14.05 percent to Tk 722.23 crore yesterday, with 20.83 crore shares and mutual fund units changing hands.
Of the traded issues, 117 advanced, 165 declined and 51 closed unchanged.
Khulna Power dominated the turnover chart with 54.26 lakh shares worth Tk 41.34 crore changing hands, followed by Saiham Textile, National Housing and Finance, IPDC Finance and United Power Generation.
The textile sector dominated the gainers list yesterday. Tosrifa Industries was the day’s best performer with a 10 percent gain followed by Prime Textile Spinning Mills, Peninsula Chittagong, Saiham Textile Mills and Regent Textile Mills.
Saver Refractories was the worst loser, shedding 6.32 percent, followed by Shyampur Sugar Mills, Midas Financing, Provati Insurance and IPDC Finance.
Chittagong stocks soared yesterday with the bourse’s benchmark index, CSCX, increasing 3.40 points or 0.03 percent to finish the day at 1,443.10.
Losers beat gainers as 101 advanced, 119 declined and 32 finished unchanged in the port city stock exchange.
As per the data by the DGCI&S, exports of textiles and apparel increased by 11 percent in July 2018.
India’s textile and apparel sector is on the verge of a turnaround, with apparel exports estimated to grow 7 percent in the current financial year, the Confederation of Indian Textile Industries said today.
As per the data by the DGCI&S, exports of textiles and apparel increased by 11 percent in July 2018 to Rs 19,636 crore over the same month last year, said Sanjay Jain, Chairman, Confederation of Indian Textile Industries (CITI).
The Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence & Statistics (DGCI&S) under the commerce ministry is responsible for collection, compilation and dissemination of the country’s trade statistics and commercial information.
The overall growth in exports during Apr-July 2018 has been 3 per cent vis-a-vis same period last year. Further, the man-made fibre segment, which is expected to be the growth driver of the industry in the coming years has seen rise in production.
Imports growth in the sector has come down significantly, according to CITI.
“While the imports of T&C (Textiles and Clothing) rose from $1.78 billion in April-June 2017 to $1.87 billion in the same period this year, an increase of 5 per cent, it is significantly lower than the growth of 16 per cent last year. The measures taken by the government to increase the import duty on various textile and apparel items will help in further reducing the imports in coming months,” Jain said.
As per RBI Financial Stability Report- June 2018, the stressed advance ratio of textile sub-sector has also improved from 23.7 percent in September 2017 to 22.3 percent in March 2018, indicating signs of recovery, Jain noted.
“We anticipate the textile and apparel exports to grow by 7 percent while imports to stay flat in this 2018-19,” he said.
The Indian textile and clothing industry is finally on the verge of a turnaround.
The Indian textile and clothing industry is finally on the verge of a turnaround. After months of decline, the export of textiles and apparels has increased by 11% in July 2018 over the corresponding period, said the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (Citi).
Continuous support from the union government is expected to put the industry back on track with the textile and apparel exports growing by 7% while imports staying flat in 2018-19.
Quoting the directorate general of commercial intelligence and statistics (DGCI&S), Citi said that the textile and apparel exports for July 2018 has touched Rs 19,636 crore as compared to Rs 17,692 crore in July 2017.
Exuding confidence, Citi chairman Sanjay Jain said the worst is over for the textile and clothing industry and it is finally witnessing positive momentum. Being the single largest industrial employment provider with 10 crore people, textile sector has been benefited with the continuous support from the union government with a slew of measures on all fronts.
The overall growth in exports during April-July 2018 has been 3% vis-a-vis the same period last year. Further, the MMF segment, which is expected to be the growth driver of the industry in the coming years has seen increase in production. Growth has been observed in production of man-made fibre, spun yarn and fabric during April to June 2018. For the period April-July 2018, the man-made fibre has grown by 5% to 335 million kgs as compared to 319 million kgs in the same four month period of last fiscal. Similarly, the spun yarn grew 1.1% during the said period to 1,435 million kgs as against 1,419 million kgs in the same period last fiscal. The fabric grew by 2.5% to 17,184 million sq mtr as against 16,771 million sq mtr in the April-July 2017 period, he pointed out.
According to him, the imports growth has come down significantly. While the imports of T&C has increased from $1.78 billion in April-June 2017 to $1.87 billion in the same period this year, an increase of 5%, it is significantly lower than the growth of 16% last year. The measures taken by the government to increase the import duty on various textile and apparel items will help in further reducing the imports in coming months.
Jain also highlighted that as per RBI Financial Stability Report- June 2018, the stressed advance ratio of textile subsector has also improved from 23.7% in September 2017 to 22.3% in March 2018, indicating signs of recovery.
A strong turnaround in textiles and clothing sector is due to a number of measures of the union government, including scheme for capacity building in textile sector (SCBTS) named ‘Samarth’ of the union ministry of textiles with a sizeable outlay of Rs 1,300 crore along with other parallel skilling programmes will go in a big way to reduce the skill gap of the industry and more specifically provide a value added employment opportunity to rural women.
Devaluation of rupee by 9% in the last few months has made the industry competitive globally and imports dearer. Import duty on about 400 items has been enhanced, providing relief to the industry which was hit by huge imports post GST implementation due to import barriers reducing significantly.
Two important GST decisions in last 3 months which has allowed refund of excess ITC to the processing and fabric industry has reduced the cost of fabric by 3-4%, especially MMF fabric.
The other measures, including relief to the SME manufacturers (industry is largely populated by SME) by easing the GST returns procedure and other GST reforms. Accelerating the refund of GST dues to the industry has eased working capital pressures on the industry. Domestic demand is picking up due to settling down of GST systems and rural demand is also rising due to MSP increase and good monsoons.
Jain also stated that maintenance of a competitive exchange rate is an essential prerequisite in labour intensive manufacturing in mature industries like textiles. The currency management by the government has benefited the exports and is discouraging imports.
Odisha government today urged the Centre to introduce a direct flight between Bhubaneswar and Surat in Gujarat as lakhs of Odia families stay in the western state.
Odisha government today urged the Centre to introduce a direct flight between Bhubaneswar and Surat in Gujarat as lakhs of Odia families stay in the western state. “I would, therefore, like to request you to impress upon Air India and other private airlines to introduce direct flights between Bhubaneswar and Surat at the earliest,” Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik wrote to Union Minister Civil Aviation Minister, Suresh Prabhu.
Stating that lakhs of Odia families have settled in Surat and are engaged in the textile sector there, Patnaik said presently there is no direct air connectivity between Bhubaneswar and Surat. It takes a lot of time to travel by air between these two cities, Patnaik said adding that during hours of urgent necessity, Odia people living in Surat face untold difficulties in reaching Odisha in time.
Besides, people from both the cities visit places of tourist interest in and around these cities every year. The air connectivity between Bhubaneswar and Surat can give rise to tourist inflow to both the places, the chief minister said in the letter.
Since nearly one-third of India’s textile production is from Tamil Nadu, Amazon aims to enable the entrepreneurs and create a market for them across the globe. Already, a total of 37,000 sellers from the State have been listed on our site. We aim to encourage new businessmen in the home textile category,” said Gopal Pillai, Director and General Manager, Seller Services, Amazon India, at a press meet here on Friday.
Mr. Pillai elaborated on the e-commerce giant’s Global Selling programme that allows traders from the nooks of rural India to places like Japan and Germany.
He stated that several textile merchants producing bedding, kitchen linen, bedsheets and clothes have experienced incredible success in the global market due to high demand.
Apparel clusters of Punjab, Haryana, UP see growth after 9 months
The free fall of the rupee has halted the declining trend in India’s garment exports after almost nine months, with the sector registering around 6% positive growth in July this year as compared to the corresponding period previous year.
The recovery, which is in the rupee term, has given a ray of hope to apparel exporters, particularly from Punjab, Haryana and Noida in Uttar Pradesh, with combined employee base of around 2 million workers. Punjab and Haryana house more than 200 exporters. These northern states had been facing a decline in apparel exports because of high input costs compared to the Tirupur cluster of Tamil Nadu.
In the rupee term, exports for the month of July this year was Rs 8,757.23 crore as against Rs 8,262.94 crore in July 2017. The growth was mainly due to strengthening of dollar against the rupee, the exporters said.
“The situation has improved a bit, although Indian garment exporters are facing a stiff competition from countries such as Bangladesh, Vietnam, Cambodia and Ethiopia. To boost the exports, the government should dole out some incentives or devise a mechanism to refund embedded taxes in the GST regime,” Apparel Export Promotion Council chairman HKL Magu said.
Ludhiana-based KG Exports’ Managing Director Harish Dua finds it a temporary phenomenon. “To say that exports are now on growth trajectory is not right. The increase in exports in terms of rupee is attributed to strong dollar,” he said.
In dollar terms, export of readymade garments, however, remained in the negative territory. It dwindled marginally by 0.60% in July this year as compared to corresponding month of the previous year. The labour-intensive apparel sector is witnessing a continuous decline in exports since October 2017. In dollar terms, the country’s readymade garment exports were to the tune of $1.275 billion in July 2018 against $1.282 billion in July 2017, a decline of 0.56%.
The government must do something to boost exports such as increasing duty drawback rates. In addition to this, it should restrict exports of cotton and viscose yarn to facilitate the domestic exporters, Dua said. “The government should promote value addition to the cotton and viscose yarn rather than exporting it as a raw material,” he added.
Overall, India’s readymade garment exports in April-July 2018 was to the tune of Rs 35,860 crore, a decline by 10% as compared to corresponding period. In dollar terms, it was $5.321 billion in the first four months of the current financial year, a decline of 13.95% as compared to the same period last fiscal year. During April-July 2017, India’s apparel exports were to the tune of $6.183 billion.
The Coimbatore Tirupur District Micro and Cottage Entrepreneurs’ Association has sought complete exemption from Goods and Services Tax (GST) for job working units with less than Rs. 20 lakh annual turnover.
This was one of the resolutions passed at a meeting of the association held here.
Job working units hit
In the last one year, the job working micro units have lost over 30 % orders because of the GST.
The Central Government should reduce the rate from the present 18 % to 5 % for these units, the association said.
The much-anticipated New Industrial Policy, which will replace the 27-year-old existing policy and pave the way for promotion of new technology and reduced regulations, has been placed before the Union Cabinet for approval.
“The New Industrial Policy is now just a Cabinet nod away. Its implementation will lead to job creation and modernisation of units, and will encourage entrepreneurs to experiment with new technology to improve efficiency,” a government official told BusinessLine.
“All ministries and departments concerned were kept in the loop throughout the drafting process. Hence, there were no major changes proposed during the inter-ministerial consultations,” the official said.
This will be the third industrial policy drafted in independent India. The first was announced in 1956, and the second, in 1991.
The draft industrial policy floated in August 2017 by the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion aims to create jobs over the next two decades, promote foreign technology transfer and attract $100 billion FDI annually.
While the policy does not suggest direct changes in laws such as those governing labour, it is likely to propose the establishment of a body with representation from the Centre and the States to work on changes whenever required. It also suggests strengthening of municipal bodies.
To promote the use of new technology such as robotics and artificial intelligence, the policy is expected to emphasise promoting R&D and set up an institutional mechanism to encourage commercial utilisation of research done using government funds, the official said.
Commerce & Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu has said the policy would include steps to cut down unnecessary regulations.
“The New Industrial Policy will encourage the industry to work together with the government to improve productivity, R&D efforts, and efficiency,” the official said.
The policy will focus on ‘Make in India’, improving ease of doing business, aligning trade and manufacturing, improving access to credit for MSMEs, industrial infrastructure creation, skill development and promotion of technology.
The DIPP is also hopeful that the policy will act as a catalyst to help the Start-up India initiative to drive India’s economic growth.
